Hot and Cold
by rainwater tears
Summary: A cold Sunday in Princeton has never been so warm. Total fluff.


Title: Hot and Cold  
  
Author: Rainwater Tears (aka Lizibit)  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: a cold Sunday afternoon in Princeton has never been so warm.  
  
Author's Note: If you can't figure out who it is I'll tell you at the end. Just a fluff piece. Oh, and it's accurate. I don't live too far away.  
  
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The cold bit at her nose like something out of a theraflu commercial. She knew she should have brought the ski mask her mother bought her as a joke for Christmas, but she couldn't imagine that New Jersey actually got this cold. Did anywhere get this cold? And wasn't Connecticut supposed to be colder. It was further north. Sighing, she tugged her jacket in a little closer and prayed for a heating vent, a thicker scarf, an elephant to fall on her head and bury her in it's tough gray folds of skin.  
  
The Princeton campus wasn't overwhelmingly large, but finding one person out of thousands was. Finally giving into her fingers's pleas for a respit, she ducked into a pancake house, a room full of co-eds sitting at maple syrup tables with mugs of hot chocolate. She smiled when she was hit with a blast of hot air, and then winced when she felt the skin on her face crack. Her lips were bleeding, and she wondered if her legs would snap in half when she bent to sit down.  
  
She decided to risk it, and gingerly climbed onto a bar stool across the room for the door to the outside world.  
  
When she had regained some feeling in her body she took a sip of the hot chocolate she had ordered from the friendly waitress who looked about as cold as she felt. Closing her eyes as to savor the feeling of thick chocolate trickling down her throat, she didn't notice the man sit down beside her.  
  
"You look as though you've never tasted anything so good in your life."  
  
She jumped, spilling the scalding liquid down her front. "Look what you did."  
  
"Now you won't be so cold when you go back outside, will you?"  
  
She smiled. "I wasn't expecting you to find me."  
  
"Well, you didn't seem to be finding me, so I figured I might as well help you out."  
  
Abruptly changing the topic she scolded him. "You could have told me it was going to be so cold."  
  
"You're supposed to be the prepared one. I thought you'd look it up."  
  
"Yeah, well, Yale has spoiled me. They already know everything there, so I don't have to."  
  
He smiled. "Of course, I should have known."  
  
He ordered a coffee, black, with more beans than water. She laughed. "You remind me of my mother."  
  
"Is that a good thing?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Ah." They sat in a comfortable silence until she gave into her grumbling stomach and ordered a full stack of pancakes.   
  
"Are you sure you want to do that? You haven't seen the portions here," he said once their waitress had left.  
  
"And you haven't seen me eat. I'll probably have to order a second plate."  
  
"And if you do I may have to leave you with the bill."  
  
Once she was done with the stack (he had managed a few bites out of the side before she'd threatened to drive her fork into his hand) they headed out. When she asked where they were going he told her it was a surprise. When she asked if it would be warm he didn't answer.  
  
He covered her eyes as he led her up stairs and around a corner. She felt the warm air before he had even opened the door and smiled, but he didn't remove his hand. "Welcome to the warmest building on campus" he whispered into her ear as he led her around another corner and let her look.  
  
They were in the doorway of what looked like a library. Hanging above them were sentences. She recognized one as the first sentence of "Madeline" another was "Charlotte's Web."  
  
"Where are we?" She asked, wondering how he had found a place so perfect.  
  
"It's the children's library. I thought you'd like it."  
  
"I imagine heaven like this."  
  
He laughed at her innocence and passion. "Full of childrens books?"  
  
"Full of books, with exhibits and beanbag chairs and crayons and sequins. It's like childhood in one room."  
  
He looked around, starting to see what it was about a place like this that pulled her in and didn't let her go.  
  
A few hours later they were collapsed on a purple beanbag chair reading a "Harry Potter" book aloud to each other. She had examined the place from top to bottom, and discovered endless surprises. There were fake books that appeared to be on a bookcase until you got closer and realized they were a staircase up to a loft with a periscope that looked out onto a little chinese village. There was a treehouse complete with carvings like "Stuart Little was here" and "Frog and Toad." She had made him a crown out of green and blue construction paper to match her necklace, and she had scribbled a Robert Frost poem on a slip of paper well hidden for a four-year-old to discover. He figured the janitor would find it first, but he hadn't told her that. He'd let her have her fun. When it was finally time to say goodbye he didn't want her to leave.  
  
"I'll come back next Sun--no wait. I promised I'd spend next weekend with my mom."  
  
"And you can't get out of it?"  
  
"I've hardly seen her this month. I'll spend the weekend after that with you."  
  
"The whole weekend?"  
  
"We'll see."  
  
After promises of phone calls and e-mails and a few hundred goodbyes she was on the little train to the next town over where a bigger train would take her back to New Haven. She pulled her paper necklace over her head and flattened it into the back of a large textbook before pressing her hand against her rosy cold cheek. She could still feel the hot imprint of his lips and his arms wrapped around her shoulders.  
  
She'd see him again soon.  
  
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A/N: it's Rory and Jamie. "A Family Matter" got me thinking, and this was the result. 


End file.
